Plan Would Ease Labor Shortage Among Engineers

May 03, 2001|By JODY SNIDER and CAROLYN SHAPIRO Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — A plan for Newport News Shipbuilding to use engineers from General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division in Connecticut would allow Newport News to take advantage of a "ready labor force," an advantage in an industry that already shows signs of a labor shortage, said a spokesman for General Dynamics.

One key advantage of using the Electric Boat engineering force, which numbers 1,400, is that those engineers already have security clearance to work on defense contracts. Such clearances can take one to two years to get approval, said Kendell Pease, a spokesman for Falls Church-based General Dynamics.

The Electric Boat engineers will boost Newport News Shipbuilding's technical staff in Newport News and supply Groton engineers with work as government contracts at Electric Boat wind down. But those employees, while on the Newport News shipyard's payroll, will continue to work in Connecticut through "virtual engineering," said Pease.

The plan is contingent upon the approval of General Dynamics' $2.6 billion buyout offer for Newport News Shipbuilding, which was announced last week.

Groton engineers' work for Newport News Shipbuilding would begin once their responsibilities for Electric Boat decrease as design work ends on the Virginia- class and Seawolf submarines. The two shipyards have worked together as partners on submarine contracts through virtual engineering for the past few years.

As the shipyard prepares for other work related to CVNX, the next generation of aircraft carriers, the yard has experienced difficulty hiring qualified engineers, said Newport News Shipbuilding spokesman Jerri Fuller Dickseski.

In fact, a labor shortage has plagued companies seeking engineers nationwide, according to William Swart, dean of the engineering and technology department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Even with an economic slowdown that has led to work force reductions in some industries, most companies would lay off their lesser-skilled workers first, rather than the more experienced engineers that the shipyard needs, Swart said.

In general, the demand for trained engineers outpaces the supply. And the educational pipeline that feeds that supply shows no signs of increasing its flow. "We are having a very difficult time attracting students into engineering," Swart said.

The shipyard and the defense industry have even greater challenges seeking engineers, according to Swart and industry experts. Outside of Hampton Roads, fewer engineers are aware of the cutting-edge work at the shipyard, particularly compared with the hype surrounding the private sector.

"Certainly the computer arena, the high-tech arena, is very hot, very challenging," Swart said.

Defense work is so specialized and unique to its projects that it offers engineers little experience they can take to other industries. And in defense work, as dependent as it is on government contracts, the future is less predictable.

"I do know that the defense industry has had trouble hiring engineers," said Ivan Eland, a defense industry analyst. "Frankly, the technology has slipped behind the private sector."

Dickseski said the partnering of Newport News and Electric Boat engineering teams is a "natural evolution" for the company.

"For the past three years, we've been using EB engineers on the CVNX program, as they bring synergistic and complimentary skills to the contract.